Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-12-05

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to four cents an acre for all kinds
OF lands. The Texas stockman
counts 20 acres of land as barely
enough pasturage for one head of
stock, and that four cents rent meant
$4,000 year to him if he had 10000
cattle. Ihe supply of beot greatly
exceeded the demand in this country,
and Europe, beginning to import its
beef from Australia and New Zealand,
got less and less from America. The
price of beef fell rapidly, going lower
every year after 1884, until now it is
not one-fourth what it was in 1882.
: An average price per pound for beef
on the hoof then was 4 cents; now
1t is about | cents. Loss by death
followed loss 10y decrease in price
until cattlemen grew discouraged, lost
heart, and began to try to sell out of
the business. But they found ne one
to buy. The jubilant cattlemen's
conventions of 1882 and 1883 became
in 1888 and 1886 meetings for the
purpose of exchanging condolences
with each other, and in 1887 they
were not held at all. Several failures
of heavy cattlemen added to the panic
IN the business, and the cattlemen
finally almost grew to believe that
their herds were not worth the sala-
ries of the cowboys paid for watching
them.
Colonel |. II. Knox, President of
the National Stock Yards Company,
looks at the situation with an eve to
the future. 1.-The ranges are being
exhausted" said he. "The young
cattle are all being shipped to market
and the calf crop is being sold.
Where Is the beef of the next two
years coming from? Three years
from now this draft in the herds will
be most surely felt, when the calves
they are now sending in to market
would be good beef. | am sure that
the result Of this years rush to market
will make the demand as much in ex-
cess of the supply in two or three
years as 1T is now the other way.
Then prices will go up again. The
pendulum has swung from high prices
to low prices, and it will take swing
toward high prices again"
This opinion is held by all of the
cattlemen who have managed to keep
out of the reach of the laws concern
ing debtor and creditor, and they are
nursing their herds, selling off only
those cattle they can spare, and re-
lieving their now crowded ranges.
Paradoxical as it may seem, it is be-
lleved by cattlemcn generally that
now is the time for man with money
to go into the cattle business. He
can buy his cattle and his ranges at
low prices, and by keeping them out
OF the market and allowing them to
increase, he will be in a position to
supply the demand for beef, which is
coming in the next few Years, and re-
ceive the benefit of the high prices.
FOR THE BENEFIT OF BUTCHERS.
Meantime, while catt)emen have
been failing, and the prices offered
have been steadily declining, the
butchers have gone on serenely, buy
ing beef at the low figures prevailing
now and selling at the high prices
they charged four years ago. Their
prices are no lower now than they
were when cattle sold at $50 head
The dressed beef companies can buy
cattle at such low prices that they can
sell it at wholesale at : cents per
pound, and the butcher buys at the
same prices. Not one of the 500
butchers in st. Louis will sell beef a,
less than -! cents per pound, and
much of it is sod at 20 cents A
butcher can buy good beef steer for
IS at the present prices. 1t will dress
400 pounds at the least. He will sell
that at an average price Of l23 cents,
which will give him $50, or a clear
profit of $42 on every head that he
sells to his customers. 1t is small
wonder that the butchers, making
such enormous profits, hate the
dressed beef companies, who are
establishing retail shops and under
selling them. But it is through the
dressed beef companies only that the
consumer of beef can obtain any ben
eff: from the low prices which are
driving the stockmen out of the husi-
ness and making beef really the cheap
est meat OH the market